Key role of human, social & natural capital in Northumbrian Water Group performance report

Northumbrian Water Group (NWG), owner of Northumbrian Water and Essex & Suffolk Water, has taken an innovative new approach to annual reporting using the five capitals that organisations depend on to look at their influence and impact in the wider economy, environment and society.

The Group has produced its first ‘Our Contribution’ report which seeks to go further than simply monitoring the performance of the organisation based on its financial return, by encouraging a wider understanding of its impact on society, the natural world, the economy and its employees.

NWG is aiming to provide a far more integrated picture of its performance by putting human, environmental and social indicators alongside financial indicators.

The Group has significant resources – employing thousands of skilled people, owning assets worth billions of pounds, managing a multi-million pound annual investment programme, and working in partnership with thousands of suppliers.

Central to the Our Contribution report are five capitals that NWG relies on as a business for its goods and services – financial capital, manufactured capital, natural capital, human & intellectual capital and social capital.

Commenting on the ripple effect of its financial and manufactured capital on the local economy, the report says for every £100 million of investment and expenditure in the Northumbrian Water region an estimated £80 million could be generated as a result, with a corresponding £28 million for every £100 million of investment and expenditure in the ESW region.

The report recognises that understanding and managing the organisation’s interactions with the five key capitals is critical to its future business success, and sets out how each area of the organisation depends on them. Click here to read more